Fast HDD storage options for 5,1

[monkeybagel]

Hi everyone,

I use my Macintosh a great deal with VMware Fusion and have many VMs running at once. It was ordered from Apple with a 512MB SSD and a 2TB HDD. I have added two additional 2TB HDDs and they are running OS X software RAID 0. The data is not mission critical on these drives.

I am curious what options others are using for fast storage? It seems the RAID 0 array is saturating the SATA 2 connection. Are there any eSATA cards and external arrays that work well? The SSD is for the OS and applications, and I would like to stick with rotational drives if possible for additional storage. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[h9826790]

For HDD (not SSD), there should be no way to saturate the SATA 2 connection (for normal user). RAID 0 won't make any difference, because the HDD are connected by multiple SATA 2 port which will also multiply the bandwidth.

For non-mission critical stuff, RAID 0 is the cheapest way to go. You can put 4 HDD in RAID 0 which can gives you 400-500MB/s sequential Read/Write speed. I am not sure how's Apple SSD looks like, but if that's a 2.5" SATA SSD, just put that in the lower optical bay will be fine.

However, this is basically only good for large file read / write. For small files, SSD is the way to go.

 

[pastrychef]

I don't know what type of performance you are looking for, but THIS link gives information on how to get ridiculous speeds.

If you with to stick with traditional platter based mechanical hard drives, you will have to go with a RAID solution or maybe a NAS (which probably will also be running some sort of RAID) via iSCSI with 10GbE and installing a 10GbE card in to your Mac Pro.

 

[monkeybagel]

For HDD (not SSD), there should be no way to saturate the SATA 2 connection (for normal user). RAID 0 won't make any difference, because the HDD are connected by multiple SATA 2 port which will also multiply the bandwidth.

For non-mission critical stuff, RAID 0 is the cheapest way to go. You can put 4 HDD in RAID 0 which can gives you 400-500MB/s sequential Read/Write speed. I am not sure how's Apple SSD looks like, but if that's a 2.5" SATA SSD, just put that in the lower optical bay will be fine.

However, this is basically only good for large file read / write. For small files, SSD is the way to go.

I'll admit I have not done the math, but the speed tests performed on the 3 disk RAID 0 array are the same as the 512 SSD that came in it, so I figured I was getting close to saturating the SATA interface.
[doublepost=1455125325][/doublepost]

I don't know what type of performance you are looking for, but THIS link gives information on how to get ridiculous speeds.

If you with to stick with traditional platter based mechanical hard drives, you will have to go with a RAID solution or maybe a NAS (which probably will also be running some sort of RAID) via iSCSI with 10GbE and installing a 10GbE card in to your Mac Pro.

I was thinking the same thing regarding the 10GbE interface. It is connected to a Cisco 3560 L3 switch right now, and I could aggregate the ports, but I would need something on the other side that would also push more than 1GbE bandwidth, or do the 10GbE option.

 

[pastrychef]

If you will be using link aggregation, the Synology devices seem to be capable of some phenomenal speeds:

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/performance#xs_plus